Favorite repertoire includes Stravinsky’s Firebird, Ravel’s Bolero, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “The Resurrection,” Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Among the many other highlights of the season is a four-program Fiesta! celebrating Latin music, the popular, annual Holiday Spectacular, Handel’s Messiah, the Moveable Musical Feasts, the biannual gala, Art of Music, and the release of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever recording.
TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES A SEASON TO CELEBRATE!
2008/09—80th Anniversary Season Sparkles with Classic Series Guest Soloists The Romeros Guitar Quartet, Cecile Licad, Fabio Bidini & TSO Pops! Headliners, The Smothers Brothers, Bugs Bunny on Broadway, The Lettermen & The Broadway Tenors
Repertoire Highlights Include Stravinsky’s Firebird, Ravel’s Bolero, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “The Resurrection,” Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 Plus FIESTA!
George Hanson opens the 80th Tucson Symphony Orchestra season with Beethoven’s great Violin Concerto and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. TSO Concertmaster Steven Moeckel will perform Beethoven’s brilliant, technically difficult work on the opening night programs, Thursday and Friday, September 25 and 26. Tucson Lifestyle has called Mr. Moeckel, “a performer of great technical skill and passion.” The Arizona Daily Star has praised him for being “a gifted and commanding violinist.”
Povilas Stravinsky, a guest soloist during the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Russian Festival in the 2006/07 season, returns in October to make his Classic Series debut performing Mendelssohn’s lively Piano Concerto No. 1 on a program with Richard Strauss’s lush Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration) and Stravinsky’s ever-popular and spirited Firebird Suite. Italian star Fabio Bidini, who played Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 to three packed Tucson Music Hall audiences during the 2006/07 Russian Festival, will return to perform Rachmaninoff’s monumental and beautiful Piano Concerto No. 3 in January, a program which also features Tchaikovsky’s triumphant Symphony No. 5. Now in his seventh season as Music Director of the New Mexico Symphony, Guillermo Figueroa returns in December to guest conduct Mozart, Beethoven and Bartok featuring Mozart’s Overture to The Impresario, Symphony No. 4 by Beethoven and Bartok’s well-liked and sparkling Concerto for Orchestra, with its virtuosic writing for all the orchestral instruments.
Making their TSO Classic Series debuts are violinist Ning Kam and Daniel Binnelli, bandoneon. American Record Guide has called Ms. Kam’s work “energetic” and “virtuosic” while ClassicsToday.com claims her playing is “stunning” and “fiendish.” In November, Ms. Kam will play Samuel Barber’s passion-filled Violin Concerto on a program which opens with the quintessential American sound of Copland’s “Our Town” and conclude with the soaring crescendos of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1.
Fiesta!
Argentina’s Daniel Binelli, an internationally renowned master of the bandoneon (a South American version of the accordion), is a seasoned composer and experienced arranger specializing in all styles of tango. Binelli is widely acclaimed as the foremost torchbearer of the music of Astor Piazzolla. He will perform Piazzolla’s Aconcagua: Concerto for Bandoneon on the Classic Series program to open the Fiesta! This February Classic program, Bolero, Tango and Dance, will be enhanced with an onstage performance by members of the University of Arizona School of Dance. From Mexico’s Marquez to Piazzolla and current sensation Golijov, both Argentinians, to America’s Daugherty and finally to Europe’s Ravel, this program showcases Latin passion at its symphonic best.
The “Royal Family of the Guitar,” The Romeros Guitar Quartet known and loved worldwide, will conclude the four-program Fiesta! with a performance of the spectacular work written especially for them, Rodrigo’s Concierto andaluz. The March Classic Series program, Latin Flavor with the Romeros, will also showcase Rimsky-Korsakov’s and Respighi’s Latin-influenced works. Mexican-born Jorge Mester, now in his 22nd year as Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony and his third season as Music Director of the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, will be the guest conductor. The annual Tucson Symphony Orchestra festival tradition includes a special salon evening featuring Music Director and Conductor George Hanson with special guests and a MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra program.
MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra Series
Mezzo-soprano Kristin Dauphinais from the voice faculty at the University of Arizona will make her debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra on the Latin Flair! program performing de Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs and El amor brujo: Ballet Suite. The program will also include the North American premiere of Amanecer by multi-award winning Italian-born composer Paola Prestini, who was raised in Sonora, Mexico, and conclude with Ginastera’s Variaciones concertantes.
The MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra Series will also include the Tucson Symphony Orchestra debuts of tenor Robert Swensen and baritone Kelly Anderson as well as pianist Spencer Myer, the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellow of the American Pianists Association. Swensen and Anderson will open the MasterWorks Series in November in the world premiere of Symphony No. 5 composed by Tucsonan Dan Asia to observe the 60th anniversary of Israel. The program will also include two works by Beethoven: Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus and Symphony No. 8. Myer will perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on the January MasterWorks program, which features Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish.”
The final MasterWorks program of the 2008/09 season in March, Mozart, Rossini and Strauss, will feature Lindabeth Binkley performing the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss. Binkley, principal oboe, will celebrate her 10th season with the TSO in 2008/09. This will be her first performance as soloist since January, 2005 and her third overall with the TSO. The program will also feature the Overture from Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Symphony No. 36, “The Linz.”
The MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra Series is performed at Catalina Foothills High School. On preceding Friday evenings, the Greater Oro Valley Arts Council presents the TSO MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra series at Canyon del Oro High School. Green Valley Recreation presents select MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra programs at the West Social Center.
Specials
Handel’s Messiah will again be presented as the MasterWorks Special on December 5, 6 and 7. For this Tucson holiday tradition, George Hanson will conduct the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus and guest soloists Christina Major, soprano, Keri Alkema, mezzo-soprano, Eric Fennell, tenor and Andrew Garland, baritone, who wowed patrons when they made their debuts with the TSO in December, 2007.
Called “a pianist’s pianist” by The New Yorker, Cecile Licad thrilled Tucson Symphony Orchestra patrons in April, 2008 performing Camille Saint-Saens’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a performance the Arizona Daily Star called “technically flawless, stunningly expressive, virtuosic to degrees that boggle the mind.” Ms. Licad is acclaimed for her interpretations of the Romantic literature of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Schumann. On the TSO Classic Special program in February, Tchaikovsky and Licad, she will perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, one of the most popular and demanding piano concertos ever written.
TSO Pops! patrons can look forward to the timely humor, superlative showmanship and the pure unadulterated joy the Smothers Brothers have been bringing to audiences of all ages for nearly half a century. Tom and Dick’s singular blend of comedic and musical talents will be on display one night only, Saturday, January 10 in a Tucson Symphony Orchestra Pops! Special performance. They are just the first of two pop culture legends coming to the TSO next season. On Saturday, March 28, Warner Bros. Studios presents Bugs Bunny on Broadway. This multi-media, cartoon spectacular spotlights the Looney Tunes classics and their extraordinary original scores by Carl Stalling, as inspired by such classical composers as Wagner and Rossini. In masterpieces like What's Opera, Doc? and The Rabbit of Seville, patrons will see and hear the work of cartoon greats Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc and others, like never before. Celebrate the genius of Warner Bros.' golden age of animation with this unique combination of cartoons on the big screen with live performances by the TSO: an event the whole family will enjoy!
In addition to another fun-filled family program, the Holiday Spectacular! with Michael Hall returning as guest conductor, the TSO Pops! Series will welcome one of the most popular vocal groups in history. The Lettermen will warm up three January nights with their smooth, romantic hits that have resulted in more than 20 million record sales and 7,000 concerts. In February, The Broadway Tenors, three of Broadway's great leading men perform the best-loved songs of the Great White Way including the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and Frank Loesser, just to name a few. The TSO Pops! Series opens in October with Big Band Blast, a salute to the great “Big Band” pianists and leaders Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Eddie Duchin. The celebration of beloved big-band gems includes “In the Mood,” “Take the A-Train,” “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” “Begin the Beguine” and more! Concluding the series is another salute, this one to Arthur Fiedler, founder and long-time conductor of the Boston Pops, ending the TSO Pops season in the greatest symphonic pops tradition.
Moveable Musical Feasts
The four annual Moveable Musical Feasts are extraordinary evenings offering exquisite dining experiences in a unique setting with unforgettable, intimate performances by TSO musicians. Fine music and dining and the elegant surroundings always promote easy camaraderie between guests and musicians! The 2008/09—80th Season Moveable Musical Feasts are October 26 at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum featuring the Tucson Symphony Orchestra String Orchestra and Wind Quintet; the annual New Year’s Eve celebration at the Arizona Inn with the TSO Piano Trio, soloists and Swing ‘N the New Jazz Ensemble; Sunday, March 29 at the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa with the TSO String Quartet and Percussion Quartet and Sunday, April 26 at Hacienda del Sol featuring the TSO Flute Viola Harp Trio and Brass Quintet.
Recital Series
These concerts feature chamber ensembles comprised of some of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s most talented musicians, and are presented at the Tucson Symphony Center and in Green Valley at the Desert Hills Lutheran Church. The Recital Series at the Tucson Symphony Center will open November 16 with the Concertmaster Recital. The Flute Viola Harp Trio performs on February 1, the Piano Trio performs March 1 and the Brass Quintet concludes the series on April 5. In Green Valley, the first Recital features the String Quartet on November 16. The Concertmaster recital follows on February 1; the Woodwind Quintet performs March 1 and the Piano Trio concludes the series on April 5. -- www.tucsonsymphony.org
